her bodily powers much weakened. The probability is, that the
long-continued strain kept upon her muscular and nervous organization,
during the witchcraft scenes, had destroyed her constitution. Such
uninterrupted and vehement exercise, to their utmost tension, of the
imaginative, intellectual, and physical powers, in crowded and heated
rooms, before the public gaze, and under the feverish and consuming
influence of bewildering and all but delirious excitement, could hardly
fail to sap the foundations of health in so young a child. The
tradition is, that she had a slow and fluctuating decline. The language
of her will intimates, that, at intervals, there were apparent checks
to her disease, and rallies of strength,—"oftentimes sick and weak in
body." She inherited from her mother a sensitive and fragile
constitution; but her father, although brought to the grave, probably
by the terrible responsibilities and trials in which he had been
involved, at a comparatively early age, belonged to a long-lived race
and neighborhood. The opposite elements of her composition struggled in
a protracted contest,—on the one side, a nature morbidly subject to
nervous excitability sinking under the exhaustion of an overworked,
overburdened, and shattered system; on the other, tenacity of life. The
conflict continued with alternating success for years; but the latter
gave way at last. Her story, in all its aspects, is worthy of the study
of the psychologist. Her confession, profession, and death point the
moral.
The Rev. Joseph Green died Nov. 26, 1715. The following tribute to his
memory is inscribed on the records of the church. It is in the
handwriting, and style of thought and language, of Deacon Edward
Putnam.
"Then was the choicest flower and greenest olive-tree in the garden of
our God here cut down in its prime and flourishing estate at the age of
forty years and two days, who had been a faithful ambassador from God
to us eighteen years. Then did that bright star set, and never more to
appear here among us; then did our sun go down; and now what darkness
is come upon us! Put away and pardon our iniquities, O Lord! which have
been the cause of thy sore displeasure, and return to us again in
mercy, and provide yet again for this thy flock a pastor after thy own
heart, as thou hath promised to thy people in thy word; on which
promise we have hope, for we are called by thy name; and, oh, leave us
not!" [ii.513]
The Rev. Peter Clark was ordained June 5, 1717. The termination of the
connection between the Salem Village church and the witchcraft
delusion, and all similar kinds of absurdity and wickedness, is marked
by the following record, which fully and for ever redeems its
character. If Samuel Parris had been as wise and brave as Peter Clark,
he would, in the same decisive manner, have nipped the thing in the
bud.
_"Salem Village Church Records._
"Sept. 5, 1746.—At a church meeting appointed on the lecture, the day
before, on the occasion of several persons in this parish being
reported to have resorted to a woman of a very ill reputation,
pretending to the art of divination and fortune-telling, &c., to make
inquiry into that matter, and to take such resolutions as may be
thought proper on the occasion, the brethren of the church then present
came into the following votes; viz., That for Christians, especially
church-members, to seek to and consult reputed witches or
fortune-tellers, this church is clearly of opinion, and firmly believes
on the testimony of the Word of God, is highly impious and scandalous,
being a violation of the Christian covenant sealed in baptism,
rendering the persons guilty of it subject to the just censure of the
church.
"No proof appearing against any of the members of this church (some of
whom had been strongly suspected of this crime), so as to convict them
of their being guilty, it was further voted, That the pastor, in the
name of the church, should publicly testify their disapprobation and
abhorrence of this infamous and ungodly practice of consulting witches
or fortune-tellers, or any that are reputed such; exhorting all under
their watch, who may have been guilty of it, to an hearty repentance
and returning to God, earnestly seeking forgiveness in the blood of
Christ, and warning all against the like practice for the time to come.
"Sept. 7.—This testimony, exhortation, and warning, voted by the
church, was publicly given by the pastor, before the dismission of the
congregation."
The Salem Village Parish, when its present pastor, the Rev. Charles B.
Rice, was settled, Sept. 2, 1863, had been in existence a hundred and
ninety-one years. During its first twenty-five years, it had four
ministers, whose aggregate period of service was eighteen years. During
the succeeding hundred and sixty-six years, it had four ministers,
whose aggregate period of service[ii.514] was one hundred and
fifty-eight years. They had all been well educated, several were men of
uncommon endowments, and without exception they possessed qualities
suitable for success and usefulness in their calling.
The first period was filled with an uninterrupted series of troubles,
quarrels, and animosities, culminating in the most terrific and
horrible disaster that ever fell upon a people. The second period was
an uninterrupted reign of peace, harmony, and unity; no religious
society ever enjoying more comfort in its privileges, or exhibiting a
better example of all that ought to characterize a Christian
congregation.
The contrast between the lives of its ministers, in the two periods
respectively, is as great as between their pastorates. The first four
suffered from inadequate means of support, and, owing to the feuds in
the congregation, rates not being collected, were hardly supplied with
the necessaries of life. There is no symptom in the records of the
second period of there having ever been any difficulty on this score.
The prompt fulfilment of their contracts by the people, and the favor
of Providence, placed the ministers above the reach or approach of
inconvenience or annoyance from that quarter.
The history of the New-England churches presents no epoch more
melancholy, distressful, and stormy than the first, and none more
united, prosperous, or commendable than the second period in the annals
of the Salem Village church.
The contrast between the fortunes and fates of the ministers of these
two periods is worthy of being stated in detail.
James Bayley began to preach at the Village at the formation of the
society, when he was quite a young man, within three years from
receiving his degree at Harvard College. After about seven years,
during which he buried his wife and three children, and encountered a
bitter and turbulent opposition,—so far as we can see, most causeless
and unreasonable,—he relinquished the ministry altogether, and spent
the residue of his life in another profession elsewhere.
The ministry of George Burroughs, at the Village, lasted about two
years. The violence of both parties to the controversy by which the
parish had been rent was concentrated upon his innocent and unsheltered
head. He was, at a public assembly of his[ii.515] people, in his own
meeting-house, arrested, and taken out in the custody of the marshal of
the county, a prisoner for a debt incurred to meet the expenses of his
wife's recent funeral, of an amount less than the salary then due him,
and which, in point of fact, he had paid at the time by an order upon
the parish treasurer. From such outrageous ill-treatment, he escaped by
resigning his ministry. He was followed to his retreat in a remote
settlement, and while engaged there, a laborious, self-sacrificing, and
devoted minister, was, by the malignity of his enemies at the Village,
suddenly seized, all unconscious of having wronged a human creature,
snatched from the table where he was taking his frugal meal in his
humble home, torn from his helpless family, hurried up to the Village;
overwhelmed in a storm of falsehood, rage, and folly; loaded with
irons, immured in a dungeon, carried to the place of execution,
consigned to the death of a felon; and his uncoffined remains thrown
among the clefts of the rocks of Witch Hill, and left but half
buried,—for a crime of which he was as innocent as the unborn child.
Deodat Lawson, a great scholar and great preacher, after a two years'
trial, and having buried his wife and daughter at the Village,
abandoned the attempt to quell the storm of passion there. He found
another settlement on the other side of Massachusetts Bay, which he
left without taking leave, and was never heard of more by his people.
Eight years afterwards, he re-appeared in the reprint, at London, of
his famous Salem Village sermon, and then vanished for ever from sight.
A cloud of impenetrable darkness envelopes his name at that point. Of
his fate nothing is known, except that it was an "unhappy" one.
Samuel Parris, after a ministry of seven years, crowded from the very
beginning with contention and animosity, and closed in desolation,
ruin, and woes unutterable, havoc scattered among his people and the
whole country round, was driven from the parish, the blood of the
innocent charged upon his head, and, for the rest of his days,
consigned to obscurity and penury. The place of his abode has upon it
no habitation or structure of man; and the only vestiges left of him
are his records of the long quarrel with his congregation, and his
inscription on the headstone, erected by him, as he left the Village
for ever, over the fresh grave of his wife.[ii.516]
Surely, the annals of no church present a more dismal, shocking, or
shameful history than this.
Joseph Green, on the 26th of November, 1715, terminated with his life a
ministry of eighteen years, as useful, beneficent, and honorable as it
had been throughout harmonious and happy. Peter Clark died in office,
June 10, 1768, after a service of fifty-one years. He was recognized
throughout the country as an able minister and a learned divine. Peace
and prosperity reigned, without a moment's intermission, among the
people of his charge. Benjamin Wadsworth, D.D., also died in office,
Jan. 18, 1826, after a service of fifty-four years. Through life he was
universally esteemed and loved in all the churches. Milton P. Braman,
D.D., on the 1st of April, 1861, terminated by resignation a ministry
of thirty-five years. He always enjoyed universal respect and
affection, and the parish under his care, uninterrupted union and
prosperity. He did not leave his people, but remains among them,
participating in the enjoyment of their privileges, and upholding the
hands of his successor. His eminent talents are occasionally exercised
in neighboring pulpits, and in other services of public usefulness. He
lives in honored retirement on land originally belonging to Nathaniel
Putnam, distant only a few rods, a little to the north of east, from
the spot owned and occupied by his first predecessor, James Bayley.
It can be said with assurance, of this epoch in the history of the
Salem Village church and society, that it can hardly be paralleled in
all that indicates the well-being of man or the blessings of Heaven. No
such contrast, as these two periods in the annals of this parish
present, can elsewhere be found.
Prosecutions for witchcraft continued in the older countries after they
had been abandoned here; although it soon began to be difficult,
everywhere, to procure the conviction of a person accused of
witchcraft. In 1716, a Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, the latter aged
nine years, were hanged in Huntingdon, in England, for witchcraft. In
the year 1720, an attempt, already alluded to, was made to renew the
Salem excitement in Littleton, Mass., but it failed: the people had
learned wisdom at a price too dear to allow them so soon to forget it.
In a letter to Cotton Mather, written Feb. 19, 1720, the excellent Dr.
Watts, after having expressed his doubts respecting the sufficiency of
the spec[ii.517]tral evidence for condemnation, says, in reference to
the Salem witchcraft, "I am much persuaded that there was much
immediate agency of the Devil in these affairs, and perhaps there were
some real witches too." Not far from this time, we find what was
probably the opinion of the most liberal-minded and cultivated people
in England expressed in the following language of Addison: "To speak my
thoughts freely, I believe, in general, that there is and has been such
a thing as witchcraft, but, at the same time, can give no credit to any
particular instance of it."
There was an execution for witchcraft in Scotland in 1722. As late as
the middle of the last century, an annual discourse, commemorative of
executions that took place in Huntingdon during the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, continued to be delivered in that place. An act of a
Presbyterian synod in Scotland, published in 1743, and reprinted at
Glasgow in 1766, denounced as a national sin the repeal of the penal
laws against witchcraft.
Blackstone, the great oracle of British law, and who flourished in the
latter half of the last century, declared his belief in witchcraft in
the following strong terms: "To deny the possibility, nay, the actual
existence, of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict
the revealed Word of God, in various passages both of the Old and New
Testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the
world hath in its turn borne testimony, either by examples seemingly
well attested, or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the
possibility of commerce with evil spirits."
It is related, in White's "Natural History of Selborne," that, in the
year 1751, the people of Tring, a market town of Hertfordshire, and
scarcely more than thirty miles from London, "seized on two
superannuated wretches, crazed with age and overwhelmed with
infirmities, on a suspicion of witchcraft." They were carried to the
edge of a horse-pond, and there subjected to the water ordeal. The
trial resulted in the acquittal of the prisoners; but they were both
drowned in the process.
A systematic effort seems to have been made during the eighteenth
century to strengthen and renew the power of superstition. Alarmed by
the progress of infidelity, many eminent and excellent men availed
themselves of the facilities which their position at the head of the
prevailing literature afforded them, to push the[ii.518] faith of the
people as far as possible towards the opposite extreme of credulity. It
was a most unwise, and, in its effects, deplorable policy. It was a
betrayal of the cause of true religion. It was an acknowledgment that
it could not be vindicated before the tribunal of severe reason.
Besides all the misery produced by filling the imagination with unreal
objects of terror, the restoration to influence, during the last
century, of the fables and delusions of an ignorant age, has done
incalculable injury, by preventing the progress of Christian truth and
sound philosophy; thus promoting the cause of the very infidelity it
was intended to check. The idea of putting down one error by setting up
another cannot have suggested itself to any mind that had ever been led
to appreciate the value or the force of truth. But this was the policy
of Christian writers from the time of Addison to that of Johnson. The
latter expressly confesses, that it was necessary to maintain the
credit of the belief of the existence and agency of ghosts, and other
supernatural beings, in order to help on the argument for a future
state as founded upon the Bible.
Dr. Hibbert, in his excellent book on the "Philosophy of Apparitions,"
illustrates some remarks similar to those just made, by the following
quotation from Mr. Wesley:—
"It is true, that the English in general, and indeed most of the men in
Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere
old wives' fables. I am sorry for it; and I willingly take this
opportunity of entering my solemn protest against this violent
compliment, which so many that believe the Bible pay to those who do
not believe it. I owe them no such service. I take knowledge, these are
at the bottom of the outcry which has been raised, and with such
insolence spread throughout the nation, in direct opposition, not only
to the Bible, but to the suffrage of the wisest and best men in all
ages and nations. They well know (whether Christians know it or not),
that the giving up witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible. And
they know, on the other hand, that, if but one account of the
intercourse of men with separate spirits be admitted, their whole
castle in the air (Deism, Atheism, Materialism) falls to the ground. I
know no reason, therefore, why we should suffer even this weapon to be
wrested out of our hands. Indeed, there are numerous arguments besides,
which abundantly confute their vain imaginations. But we need not be
hooted out of one: neither reason nor religion requires this." [ii.519]
The belief in witchcraft continued to hold a conspicuous place among
popular superstitions during the whole of the last century. Many now
living can remember the time when it prevailed very generally. Each
town or village had its peculiar traditionary tales, which were gravely
related by the old, and deeply impressed upon the young.
The legend of the "Screeching Woman" of Marblehead is worthy of being
generally known. The story runs thus: A piratical cruiser, having
captured a Spanish vessel during the seventeenth century, brought her
into Marblehead harbor, which was then the site of a few humble
dwellings. The male inhabitants were all absent on their fishing
voyages. The pirates brought their prisoners ashore, carried them at
the dead of the night into a retired glen, and there murdered them.
Among the captives was an English female passenger. The women who
belonged to the place heard her dying outcries, as they rose through
the midnight air, and reverberated far and wide along the silent
shores. She was heard to exclaim, "O mercy, mercy! Lord Jesus Christ,
save me! Lord Jesus Christ, save me!" Her body was buried by the
pirates on the spot. The same piercing voice is believed to be heard at
intervals, more or less often, almost every year, in the stillness of a
calm starlight or clear moonlight night. There is something, it is
said, so wild, mysterious, and evidently superhuman in the sound, as to
strike a chill of dread into the hearts of all who listen to it. The
writer of an article on this subject, in the "Marblehead Register" of
April 3, 1830, declares, that "there are not wanting, at the present
day, persons of unimpeachable veracity and known respectability, who
still continue firmly to believe the tradition, and to assert that they
themselves have been auditors of the sounds described, which they
declare were of such an unearthly nature as to preclude the idea of
imposition or deception."
When "the silver moon unclouded holds her way," or when the stars are
glistening in the clear, cold sky, and the dark forms of the moored
vessels are at rest upon the sleeping bosom of the harbor; when no
natural sound comes forth from the animate or inanimate creation but
the dull and melancholy rote of the sea along the rocky and winding
coast,—how often is the watcher startled from the reveries of an
excited imagination by the pite[ii.520]ous, dismal, and terrific
screams of the unlaid ghost of the murdered lady!
A negro died, fifty years ago, in that part of Danvers called
originally Salem Village, at a very advanced age. He was supposed to
have reached his hundredth year. He never could be prevailed upon to
admit that there was any delusion or mistake in the proceedings of
1692. To him, the whole affair was easy of explanation. He believed
that the witchcraft was occasioned by the circumstance of the Devil's
having purloined the church-book, and that it subsided so soon as the
book was recovered from his grasp. Perhaps the particular hypothesis of
the venerable African was peculiar to himself; but those persons must
have a slight acquaintance with the history of opinions in this and
every other country, who are not aware that the superstition on which
it was founded has been extensively entertained by men of every color,
almost, if not quite, up to the present day. If the doctrines of
demonology have been completely overthrown and exterminated in our
villages and cities, it is a very recent achievement; nay, I fear that
in many places the auspicious event remains to take place.
In the year 1808, the inhabitants of Great Paxton, a village of
Huntingdonshire, in England, within sixty miles of London, rose in a
body, attacked the house of an humble, and, so far as appears,
inoffensive and estimable woman, named Ann Izard, suspected of
bewitching three young females,—Alice Brown, Fanny Amey, and Mary
Fox,—dragged her out of her bed into the fields, pierced her arms and
body with pins, and tore her flesh with their nails, until she was
covered with blood. They committed the same barbarous outrage upon her
again, a short time afterwards; and would have subjected her to the
water ordeal, had she not found means to fly from that part of the
country.
The writer of the article "Witchcraft," in Rees's "Cyclopædia," gravely
maintains the doctrine of "ocular fascination."
Prosecutions for witchcraft are stated to have occurred, in the first
half of the present century, in some of the interior districts of our
Southern States. The civilized world is even yet full of necromancers
and thaumaturgists of every kind. The science of "palmistry" is still
practised by many a muttering vagrant; and perhaps some in this
neighborhood remember when, in the days[ii.521] of their youthful
fancy, they held out their hands, that their future fortunes might be
read in the lines of their palms, and their wild and giddy curiosity
and anxious affections be gratified by information respecting
wedding-day or absent lover.
The most celebrated fortune-teller, perhaps, that ever lived, resided
in an adjoining town. The character of "Moll Pitcher" is familiarly
known in all parts of the commercial world. She died in 1813. Her place
of abode was beneath the projecting and elevated summit of High Rock,
in Lynn, and commanded a view of the wild and indented coast of
Marblehead, of the extended and resounding beaches of Lynn and Chelsea,
of Nahant Rocks, of the vessels and islands of Boston's beautiful bay,
and of its remote southern shore. She derived her mysterious gifts by
inheritance, her grandfather having practised them before in
Marblehead. Sailors, merchants, and adventurers of every kind, visited
her residence, and placed confidence in her predictions. People came
from great distances to learn the fate of missing friends, or recover
the possession of lost goods; while the young of both sexes, impatient
of the tardy pace of time, and burning with curiosity to discern the
secrets of futurity, availed themselves of every opportunity to visit
her lowly dwelling, and hear from her prophetic lips the revelation of
the most tender incidents and important events of their coming lives.
She read the future, and traced what to mere mortal eyes were the
mysteries of the present or the past, in the arrangement and aspect of
the grounds or settlings of a cup of tea or coffee. Her name has
everywhere become the generic title of fortune-tellers, and occupies a
conspicuous place in the legends and ballads of popular superstition.
Her renown has gone abroad to the farthest regions, and her memory will
be perpetuated in the annals of credulity and imposture. An air of
romance is breathed around the scenes where she practised her mystic
art, the interest and charm of which will increase as the lapse of time
removes her history back towards the dimness of the distant past.
The elements of the witchcraft delusion of 1692 are slumbering still in
the bosom of society. We hear occasionally of haunted houses, cases of
second-sight, and communications from the spiritual world. It always
will be so. The human mind feels instinctively its connection with a
higher sphere. Some will ever be[ii.522] impatient of the restraints of
our present mode of being, and prone to break away from them; eager to
pry into the secrets of the invisible world, willing to venture beyond
the bounds of ascertainable knowledge, and, in the pursuit of truth, to
aspire where the laws of evidence cannot follow them. A love of the
marvellous is inherent to the sense of limitation while in these
terrestrial bodies; and many will always be found not content to wait
until this tabernacle is dissolved and we shall be clothed upon with a
body which is from Heaven.
[ii.523]
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APPENDIX.